This week’s links focus on “the future.” Because we spend so much of our time attempting to quantify the past so we can prepare for what’s coming next, it’s important to take some time to think about how you want to get there. How do your ITSM initiatives and plans impact the future of your organization? Do your plans align with future business objectives?

This week’s interesting links focus once again on the service desk and front line support. Now that Customer Service Week has come and gone, how are you ensuring your first line of support is equipped and prepared to meet your customers’ needs?

This week’s interesting links share the common theme of change and progression. Because change is an inevitable aspect to how we manage service offerings, the workforce, and the service lifecycle, it’s similarly important to think about the reasons for change. The ZDNet article regarding the proposed merger of Dell and EMC is a timely reminder of how changes to organizations (service providers and customers, alike) have a material impact on our environment.

There were a number of interesting webinars online this past week discussing elements of Continual Service Improvement (CSI). For practitioners of IT service management, we are aware of the need to evaluate, adapt, improve, replace, and sometimes retire services. The concept of CSI allows an IT organization to evaluate needs and offerings at every step of the evaluation, design, transition, and operation phases of a service’s lifecycle. Even the CSI process itself is subject to its own continual improvement efforts.

Enjoy the following discussions of CSI, its impacts on ITSM, and how it can be used to ensure your IT organization is meeting the needs of your business.

Welcome back! This week’s interesting links have an emphasis on the service desk. The EDUCAUSE discussion thread on extending hours of support is a great conversation among several universities regarding how they’ve increased their hours of support through a variety of means.